Treasures Underfoot: Preserving Venice's Church Floor Artifacts

71 Pages·2012·3.43 MB·English

by  Hennessey, Meghan D

Treasures Underfoot:
Preserving Venice’s Church Floor Artifacts

An Interdisciplinary Qualifying Project Report
submitted to the faculty of
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the Degree of Bachelor of Science

Submitted By:
Danielle Dechaine
Meghan Hennessey
Jeffrey Orszulak
Kevin Rullmann

Sponsoring Agencies:
UNESCO
La Soprintendenza all’Archeologia

Submitted To:
Project Advisors:
Fabio Carrera
John Zeugner

[email protected]
https://sites.google.com/site/ve12churches

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Table of Contents
Abstract...................................................................................................................................... 6
Executive Summary ................................................................................................................... 7
1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................11
2 Background ............................................................................................................................13
2.1 Churches of Venice .............................................................................................................13
2.2 Venetian Church Floor Artifacts ...........................................................................................14
2.2.1 Church Floor Materials .................................................................................................15
2.2.2 Types of Artifacts ..........................................................................................................15
2.2.3 Catholic Burial Practices ...............................................................................................16
2.3 Venetian Church Hierarchy .................................................................................................16
2.3.1 Patriarch of Venice .......................................................................................................17
2.3.2 Departments of the Church ...........................................................................................17
2.3.3 Monastic Orders of Catholicism ....................................................................................18
2.4 Preservation of Venetian Church Floor Artifacts ..................................................................19
2.4.1 Venetian Process for Restoring Artifacts .......................................................................20
2.4.2 Venetian Public Art Application .....................................................................................21
2.5 Assessment of Church Floor Artifacts .................................................................................22
2.5.1 Fading and Wear ..........................................................................................................22
2.5.2 Text Readability ............................................................................................................23
2.5.3 Cracks ..........................................................................................................................24
2.5.4 Holes and Joint Gaps ...................................................................................................25
3 Methodology ..........................................................................................................................26
3.1 Organizing Existing Artifact Data .........................................................................................27
3.1.1 Gathering Existing Data ................................................................................................27
3.1.2 Preparing for Data Collection in Venice ........................................................................28
3.2 Updating Information on Venice Churches ..........................................................................29
3.2.1 Visiting Venetian Church ..............................................................................................29
3.3 Ranking Artifact Damage Assessments ..............................................................................30
3.3.1 Evaluating Artifact Condition .........................................................................................30
3.3.2 Evaluating the Equation ................................................................................................31
3.4 Integrating Church and Artifact Data onto Venipedia ...........................................................32
3.4.1 Updating Venipedia through the City Knowledge Console ............................................32
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3.4.2 Creating Venipedia Pages ............................................................................................34
3.4.2.1 Church Floor Artifact Page .....................................................................................34
3.4.2.2 Churches Template ................................................................................................34
3.4.2.3 Individual Church Template ....................................................................................35
3.4.2.4 Artifact Template ....................................................................................................36
4 Results ...................................................................................................................................38
4.1 Unified Church and Church Floor Artifact Databases ..........................................................38
4.2 Church and Church Floor Artifact Venipedia Pages ............................................................40
5 Analysis .................................................................................................................................43
5.1 Damage Assessment Analysis ............................................................................................43
5.1.1 Categories of Damage ..................................................................................................44
5.1.2 Artifact Scores v. Floor Height ......................................................................................46
5.1.3 Interpretation of Artifact Scores ....................................................................................47
6 Recommendations and Conclusions ......................................................................................50
6.1 Artifact Images ....................................................................................................................50
6.2 Artifact Condition Survey .....................................................................................................50
6.3 Venetian Public Art Application ...........................................................................................51
Bibliography ..............................................................................................................................52
Appendix A: Field Form .............................................................................................................54
Appendix B: Venipedia Church Floor Artifacts Definition Page ..................................................55
Appendix C: Venipedia Churches Page ....................................................................................57
Appendix D: Individual Church Template ..................................................................................59
Appendix E: Venipedia Artifact Template ..................................................................................61
Appendix F: Enlarged Graphics ................................................................................................63
Appendix G: Churches to Revisit ..............................................................................................66
Appendix H: List of Church Codes ............................................................................................67

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Table of Figures

Figure 1: Churches in Venice with Artifacts ................................................................................ 7
Figure 2: Number of Artifacts per Church ................................................................................... 7
Figure 3: Santi Apostoli, Number of High Damage Artifacts ....................................................... 8
Figure 4: Artifact Damage Condition Assessment ...................................................................... 8
Figure 5: Santi Apostoli, Percentage of High Damage Artifacts .................................................. 9
Figure 6: Example Venipedia Page ............................................................................................ 9
Figure 7: Sample Floor Style .....................................................................................................15
Figure 8: Example of a Plaque ..................................................................................................16
Figure 9: Example of a Tomb ....................................................................................................16
Figure 10: Catholic Churches in Venice ....................................................................................16
Figure 11: Artifact Nomenclature Code .....................................................................................22
Figure 12: Example of Text Readability .....................................................................................23
Figure 13: Example of Cracks ...................................................................................................24
Figure 14: Examples of Holes & Joint Gaps ..............................................................................25
Figure 15: Church Information Status Map ................................................................................26
Figure 16: Number of Floor Artifacts per Church .......................................................................28
Figure 17: Distribution of Ratings for Artifacts with Letters ........................................................30
Figure 18: Hierarchy of Venipedia Pages ..................................................................................33
Figure 19: Example list of Uploads to City Knowledge ..............................................................33
Figure 20: Example Contents Box .............................................................................................35
Figure 21: Example Church Information Box .............................................................................35
Figure 22: Example See Also and Reference Sections .............................................................36
Figure 23: Condition Evaluation Section on Artifact Pages ........................................................37
Figure 24: Example Inscription Section on Artifact Pages .........................................................37
Figure 25: Organization of Compact Discs ................................................................................38
Figure 26: Distribution by Type of Artifact ..................................................................................39
Figure 27: Distribution of Artifact Assessment ...........................................................................39
Figure 28: Previous "Churches" Venipedia Page ......................................................................40
Figure 29: Previous Church Floors Page...................................................................................41
Figure 30: Artifact score for Artifacts with Letters ......................................................................43
Figure 31: Cut Off Points for Upper Range ................................................................................44
Figure 32: Artifact GIOV_R1 .....................................................................................................44
Figure 33: Artifact ELEM_20 .....................................................................................................44
Figure 35: Artifact SALV_M2 .....................................................................................................45
Figure 36: Artifact ROCC_I1 .....................................................................................................45
Figure 34: Lower Range Cut Off ...............................................................................................45
Figure 38: Distribution of Artifact Assessments .........................................................................46
Figure 39: Average Church Damage and Floor Height ..............................................................46
Figure 40: Damage Distribution per Church ..............................................................................47
Figure 41: Percent High Artifact Damage ..................................................................................48
Figure 42: Santi Apostoli High Number of High Damge Artifacts ...............................................48
Figure 43: Santi Apostoli, High Percentage of High Damage Artifacts .......................................49
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List of Equations

Equation 1: Fading and Wear ....................................................................................................23
Equation 2: Text Readability .....................................................................................................24
Equation 3: Priority Rating ........................................................................................................30
Equation 4: Rating Equation for Artifacts with Letters ................................................................31
Equation 5: Rating Equation for Artifacts without Letters ...........................................................31

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Authorship Page

All members of the project team contributed equally to the writing and editing of this report.

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Abstract
With one hundred forty four churches spread throughout Venice and its lagoon, churches are an
important aspect of Venetian culture. While many of these churches have been closed or repurposed,
88 churches are still active for tourist visits, services, and other religious activities. Many of these
churches were established as early as the tenth century and have since undergone several
reconstructions and renovations. Each reconstruction dramatically changed the architectural style of
the church’s exterior, while the interior often maintained some of the original features. In many
churches, the floors have remained consistent and many contain artifacts such as tombs and plaques.
While these artifacts are made of stone, years of wearing from parishioners walking over the artifacts
combined with flooding as a result of acqua alta, have worn down many of the artifacts’ inscriptions and
designs. Since 1999, Worcester Polytechnic Institute has cataloged and assessed the condition of the
church floor artifacts in Venice and its Lagoon. This project consolidated all past data and artifact
assessments to create a ranked damage score list as well as a database of all churches and church floor
artifacts on Venipedia. This database can be easily modified to include updated information about a
church or artifact as the conditions and city of Venice are constantly evolving.

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Executive Summary
Elaborately decorated churches are a tradition in Venice as old as the city itself. Some churches
seen today were founded as early as the 9th century, and while they have undergone several
reconstructions, churches have retained a strong presence in the city. While some have come and gone,
there are currently 144 churches in the city of Venice and its Lagoon islands. Many were constructed to
house works or art as much as they were built as places of worship. These works of art were not limited
to the walls, but are on the ceilings, floors and façades. Lots of money was donated to the churches by
wealthy merchants to construct facades, which draw attention to the church. These donations were
often commemorated on a plaque on the church floor, along with tombs of nobles or wealthy donators.
These plaques and tombs are still in the church floors,
in varying conditions of damage.
Hundreds of years of parishioners and tourists
alike walking through the churches as well as flood
water, or acqua alta, for which Venice is famous has
caused these artifacts to be damaged. Since 1999,
five project groups of Worcester Polytechnic Institute Figure 1: Churches in Venice with Artifacts
students have worked to create a catalog of 2,221 church
floor artifacts in the city of Venice. They recorded the artifact’s location on a church floor plan, took a
photograph of the artifact and assessed the artifact’s damage condition. In Figure 2 below, the height of
the bars represent the number of artifacts in each church. The largest number of artifacts in a church is
207 in Santi Giovanni e Paolo.

Figure 2: Number of Artifacts per Church
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Since past projects already collected this data, the main focus of our project was to consolidate and
update this information into a single database. In order to do this, we needed to organize the data from
past projects and update the church information to make the database complete to the best of our
ability. Before arriving on site, we mostly completed the first objective and developed a plan to collect
updated information on the churches. Once in Venice, we visited all 144 churches and recorded
updated information on the church’s service times, open status and a picture of the façade.
Next we looked at the artifact assessment scores, and realized the artifacts had been evaluated
on five different types of damage, but the scales for these assessments were not uniform, and the
artifacts had not been given a total score summarizing the
results of the five damage types. The types of damage past
projects chose to evaluate the artifacts on were fading and
wear, text readability, cracks, holes and joint gaps. It is
important to note this assessment does not take into
consideration inscription content or historical value of the
artifact, just the overall damage sustained by the artifact. We
developed an equation that takes into account all five
Figure 4: Artifact Damage Condition
Assessment
assessment points to standardize the scores and gave the
artifacts a new value between 0 and 1. We divided the ranked list of artifacts produced by this equation
into five categories representing varying degrees of damage. Categorizing the artifact’s conditions make
it much easier to understand how this artifact compares to other artifacts in the city. For instance,
classifying an artifact as high damage verses intermediate damage leaves less room for interpretation
than a numerical value alone. Figure 3 shows the distribution of artifact damage into five categories.
After conducting some analysis, we were able to
determine that Santi Apostoli has one of the highest
numbers of artifacts in the high damage category as
well as one of the highest percentages of high
damaged artifacts, demonstrated in Figures 4 & 5.
As a result of this, we were able to determine that
Santi Apostoli is the church in Venice that deserves Figure 3: Santi Apostoli, Number of High Damage
Artifacts
the highest priority for preservation. Other churches
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deemed to be in need of preservation according to our analysis are San Salvador, Gli Scalzi, I Tolentini,
La Fava, San Marcuola, Le Cappuccine, San Giorgio dei Greci, San Luca, San Paolo Apostolo, and
Santissimo Redentore.
The culminating product of our data
collection and assessment analysis was to produce
Venipedia pages for every church and church floor
artifact. To achieve this accomplishment, we used
the databases of church and church floor artifact
information we had complied at the beginning of
Figure 5: Santi Apostoli, Percentage of High Damage the term to upload the information using the City
Artifacts
Knowledge Console. The individual church pages
include a picture of the church façade, information about the church that we collected, and links to all of
floor artifact pages that lie in the floor. See Figure 6, or Appendix D for a full size image. The artifact
pages contain a picture of the artifact, basic
information about the artifact collected by past
projects and a transcription of the artifact’s
inscription. A Venipedia page has been created for
139 churches and all 2,221 church floor artifacts,
as well as a churches main page and church floor
artifact definition page, resulting in the Churches
section of Venipedia to increase in size by 2,362
pages.
Figure 6: Example Venipedia Page
Although we were able to accomplish
creating so many Venipedia pages, we would like to see church floor artifacts continue to be monitored
so they can receive accurate damage condition evaluations and receive attention for preservation. We
would like to see a large portion of the artifacts revisited, either to be photographed again or
reevaluated. For some of these artifacts, it has been ten years since they were cataloged and
photographed, and several of the images are of poor quality. We would also like to see church floor
artifacts be added to the Venetian Public Art Application. As of now, the application does not have
church and church floor artifact information added to it, but we would like to see the application format
work similarly to the structure of the Venipedia pages we created. Maintenance of church floor artifacts
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